Mitchell Roth, Michael Shaw, Andrew Silver, and Peter Shepard, principals in Much’s Corporate & Finance group, authored the Illinois Trends and Developments section of the 2025 Chambers Private Equity guide. In the piece, the team examines the steady uptick in M&A deal activity, particularly in the middle market, after a subdued 2024 and a slow start to 2025.
After analyzing how structural challenges have shaped the M&A market’s path in recent years, Roth, Shaw, Silver, and Shepard explain how in 2025, the middle market is proving more resilient than the large cap space because of a broader buyer universe, financing and deal structure flexibility, and more. They also discuss how middle-market buyers have been able to right-size their offer structures to today’s middle-market sellers, and they explain how private equity firms, buyers, and sellers can navigate uncertainties and capitalize on the next wave of M&A activity.